In recent years, some protection for users of radial arm saws has been attained by employing a lower guard section hinged in various ways to the usual upper saw guard. The lower guard section has been formed from semi-circular discs placed on either side of the saw blade or similar arrangements. With these protective devices in use when the saw blade is traveling at 90 degrees to the fence, the lower guard assembly is able to move with relative ease over the material being cut. Cutting components for wooden roof trusses and the like requires some angles to be cut where the saw blade approaches parallelism to the fence. In these situations, the hinged lower guard assembly tends to bind between the saw blade and fence and becomes a hazard to the sawyer as it diverts the sawyer's attention from the material being cut to the lower guard.
The objective of this invention is to provide an improved and safer guard for radial arm saws which employs a different approach to the problem and eliminates the above-discussed complications or difficulties.
Some examples of the patented prior art are U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,375,698; 2,487,396; 3,068,919 and 3,848,502.
Various features and advantages of the invention over the known prior art will become apparent to those skilled in the art during a reading of the following description.